Ever witnessed a Mafia event?

This is mainly directed at those members living in New York or New Jersey.

Just curious if anyone here had witnessed a Mafia event - if not a "whacking" or a beating, then at least some suspicious activity suggesting the presence of l.c.n., however trivial? For example, a well-dressed Italian-American jumping the queue to be immediately seated at a busy restaurant?

I wouldn't think it would be too "healthy" to admit you are a witness to a murder, especially an unsolved one

Seriously though, I do remember Don Carlo Gambino's Funeral. The Church funeral service was held in my parish at the time. I remember how they closed off the street around the church, and how crowded it was outside that church.


Don Cardi

Any FBI taking down registration numbers?

Gambino was waked a few blocks away over the weekend and on that Saturday night my ex and I were having company over to visit. I made the mistake of going to Spumoni Gardens (my favorite pizza place in the world) that night to get some food for our company. Its about 3 or 4 blocks away from the funeral home and the place was MOBBED!!! (I gave up and went elsewhere).

I used to have a picture of James Caan attending the funeral but I can't find it now.

L&B Spumoni Gardens Pizza is your favorite in the world? You're kidding me!

I'll bet the next day your mouth was watering so much from the deprivation that you suffered the night before that you went back and had a Sicilian Pie.

The church was named OUR LADY OF GRACE on Avenue W in Brooklyn. I actually lived around the corner and I still remember that the streets were so "MOBBED" ( cute one SC ) that you couldn't even walk around the corner.




Don Cardi

One of the Brooklyn neighborhoods in which I grew up (East New York) was absolutely chock-full of Mob types (it wasn't far from where Gotti got his start, and where Tuddi's cabstand was in "Goodfellas"). One of my friends had a grandmother who rented a room to an Italian guy who was single, always well dressed, never seemed to have a real job. We were told, in no uncertain terms, never to mention this guy's presence in her house to anyone. We figured out he was a Mob guy. He later turned up dead in the street.
My grandfather on my father's side lived in another part of East New York. He drove a fish truck out of the Fulton Fish Market (major Mob holding), and knew Joseph (Socks) Lanza. During Prohibition, he made booze at home and bred Pomeranian dogs, which were much prized by gangsters. My father told me that one day, a textbook gangster--black overcoat, pearl-gray fedora, etc.--showed up at their home to buy a dog. He and my grandfather boozed it up a bit, and he was introduced to my father, who was a kid at the time. The following week, my father said the guy's picture showed up on p.1 of the Daily News--he'd been massacred. Made a big impression on my dad.
When I was 14, we lived in Brownsville, another Brooklyn neighborhood famous in Mob history. I worked in a candy store on Saratoga Avenue near Livonia Avenue. Neither I, nor the owner at the time, were aware that it was the exact site of Midnight Rose's, the headquarters of Murder Inc., some 15 years earlier. Abe (Kid Twist) Reles, Allie (Tick-Tock) Tanenbaum, Pittsburg Phil Strauss, Mendy Weiss, Happy Maione, Louis Capone, Albert Anastasia and Lepke Buchalter trod the very same floor that I swept.

Great stories, Turnbull. (We must be old friends - I've heard your stories before )

Speaking of dad's, my father used to tell this story: He was out with a bunch of wiseguys at Ben Maksik's (an old Brooklyn nightclub frequented by Mob guys) and one of the guys "was really big" (my dad's words - meaning he was high up in the hierarchy). This guy was with his "girlfriend" and apparently became angry at her so he dumped his salad on the gal's head. My father said looking at the bits of salad complete with dressing hanging down all over her head and face was one of the funniest things he ever saw but nobody DARED to laugh.

Not the Italian mob, but I have a Russian mob story - I discovered one of their victims. This was back in 1986 and I was waiting in a gas station to have my car's oil changed. I went outside to have a cigarette and as I was leaning against a chain-linked fence separating the gas station from a bowling alley parking lot I noticed what appeared to be a body sitting down against the side of the garage. I climbed through the fence and after being sure it was a body (with a hole in the head) I ran back into the garage and told the owner who called the police. I found out the next day (in the papers) that it was a Russian mob hit.

OMG, do you consider this to be suspiciuos? Tip a lot and you'll jump any queue. Not only at a restaurant. Not only if you are Italian-American! I admit it would not be fair, but it's not necessarily mafia!!

I lead a very sheltered existence!

I live in a little town in Indiana, and I'm not sure but I think I witnessed some Chineese mafia guys leaving a meeting
There is a Chineese restaraunt in town that is pretty good and only Chinese people work there, we'd skateboard around there and always go in there to try and get jobs and they'd tell us we couldn't work there ahaha, but anyways we were skating there one time real late at night it was probably like 1:30 or 2 and there was a van out side with some scuzzy looking chinese just hanging around in and out of the van and we were like what are they doing and then like 5 or 6 Chinese guys came out all immactuatly dressed and the scuzzy guys came out of the van and escorted them to the van and opened the doors for them and all that. and the whole time they were mean mugging us
I don't know for sure what was going on but it was definitly strange

Geez, Ben Maksik's Town and Country Club, on Flatbush Avenue near Avenue U! Wow! Harry Belafonte's favorite NYC venue. Now the site of the Kings Plaza Mall.

And across the street was the infamous " AIRPORT" lounge.


Don Cardi

Actually, here in Boston, there was at least 20 mafiosos at my cousins wedding I attened.

I went to a neighborhood bar in New Orleans with some friends during the Holiday season 10 or 12 years ago and we were talking and drinking and it wasn't that late, maybe ten o'clock. (It's really never late in New Orleans as many bars are open until 4 a m and some never close) We were talking and these guys starting coming out of the back or the bar, like 10 of them and they were talking about going out partying. They brought us a round of beers on the house and told us in no uncertain terms that they were closing in ten minutes, which is unusual for a neighborhood bar in N. O.

I don't know if this was a connected bar or not, but if it was, I would not be surprised. The guy who brought us the beers carried himself like someone you didn't want to argue with, and we didn't. Maybe he was just the owner and his friends and they were playing cards in the back, who knows.......The Marcellos used to have one or two restaurants as well.

i was passing by on a street, then after 5 minutes i came back, they killed someone and all ppl screaming.. this was years ago. i didn't really witnessed anything, but it was a crime scene..

Witness a mafia event? No problem, switch the TV on and look at the government...
Seriously, I never vitnessed them killing anybody, but once I sold them my car - a battered hatchback with a good motor

Crazy stories guys.